


By the Tide

by jazzfic



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-13
Updated: 2013-05-13
Packaged: 2017-12-11 18:16:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/801676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jazzfic/pseuds/jazzfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Peeta is allowed to have a bad night, and mixed metaphors rule true.</p>
            </blockquote>





	By the Tide

**Author's Note:**

> Set during the Victory Tour. AU in parts. I'm not really sure what this is, just something I needed to get out of my head.

There's a balloon. It's untethered and floating slowly up towards the sparkling lights. A white balloon, teardrop-shaped and reflecting of a rare, pearly sheen that only a serious party organiser worthy of President Snow's pocket would think suitable for a Capitol ball. I think I'm the only one who's noticed it. Maybe I'm the only one who cares. My eyes follow it for too long and my neck falls too far back; my sense of balance tips sharply and I'm forced to take a step hurriedly on clumsy feet before I topple over. I gulp slightly and take in my surroundings. The table next to me, the one I've nearly taken out, is covered in tiny glasses filled with a blue liquid that smells about three thousand times as potent as whatever Haymitch has in that flask beneath his suit jacket. Not that it would matter if anyone had really been watching me. I'd just be the next soundbite of gossip making its way around this vast space. The drunken victor, crippled already— _oh dear, well, he's unbalanced as it is_ , they'll think. Poor kid. On the floor again, looking up at _her_ again, like he was in that cave. He never had a chance.

I stand there awkwardly, the fingers of my left hand hovering near my neck and over the too-tight collar I already want to rip open. I curl them instead into my palm. I'm hyperaware of everyone and I force a smile, trying to claw back some of my resolve. I take in a long breath. It helps. 

If I could have her hand in mine until this horrid thing is over, I tell myself, then I would be fine. A small voice deep inside me laughs at this. Howls almost. Fine? What's fine about playing at something fake? What's fine or reassuring or true about kissing lips that turn away the moment a shadow hides us from the lights? Of all the roles I've had to play in these last few months this is the worst. I'm selfish. I'm wholly in love and selfish because of it. 

“You look like a cloud ready to burst a rainstorm, boy.” A growl at my shoulder forces me to look up. Haymitch's eyes carry their usual glaze of sarcasm, but he surprises by managing to squeeze a drop of sympathy into his voice. I look at him and wait, my expression giving away nothing. He simply tilts his head back, mimicking me perfectly. He's had a lot more practice at this than I have. I weaken and angle away slightly. 

“What,” I ask, “so I'm not allowed to have a bad night?” I bite my lip immediately, hating how much of a kid I do sound like. I reach for one of the glasses to hide the flush that I can feel flaring in my cheeks, draining it in one gulp. It tastes like nothing and burns my throat. Tears blur my vision until I blink them away quickly. Haymitch waits, grinning. But he doesn't press again. I put down the glass and push into the crowd.

Some people know how to swim. Most people, really. I don't. It's not exactly a requirement back home. It's survival. It's family, something shared, a thing to learn. Katniss swims. Katniss swims, while the most I can do in water is pull the roots of her namesake over my body and hide. The people pressed in intricate clutches across the dancefloor don't mind me. Alone, I'm just a curiosity, a lot less of something without her.

_He never had a chance._

“Peeta.”

I don't know if she sees me first, or if I see her, or our eyes meet at the same moment. It doesn't matter. She's holding onto the spidery arms of a man with black hair and gold makeup whirled over his cheekbones. His face looks stretched and tired. Probably not the expression he was going for when he opted for that surgery. When he notices me he dips his head graciously and disappears. Katniss watches me approach. I have half an excuse waiting to be blurted out and am glad I don't have to use it. It would have started as an apology and ended the same way as it begins now, with my fingers brushing hers, barely touching for too long a second until touching turns to full contact, and I'm pulling gently and she's staring down at the ridiculous dress they've put her into, and we're not dancing but holding each other as if posed in the position of a dance, waiting to move.

She bites down on what might be a smile. “Thanks,” she says.

“For what?”

“Rescuing me. He smelt funny.”

Her nose twitches. The resentment that has been building in my chest all night and worked itself into a hard lump softens, just a little, and I watch the bow of her lips and the shine of peach-pink swept across them and wonder if much more of this will dissolve it completely. Because it will. It always does. It never changes, not with her. 

I give her time to speak. Nothing comes. I give myself time and of course, nothing comes. Before I can think better of it I very slowly angle my face closer and my feet between hers until we're touching in places that make me wish I'd never picked up that drink. We turn slowly. My fingers play with the thread of material at her shoulder. She shivers against me. 

“Everyone smells funny here,” I say. “I smell. That man smells. _You_ smell like someone steeped you in rosewater. We had a bottle of stuff at the bakery that smelt like that, up on a high shelf we weren't supposed to reach. It must have cost a month's earning. I don't know where my father got it from. One drop for one wedding cake, that's all he would use. It was like swimming in petals.”

“Peeta, you can't swim.”

“Like,” I murmur. “I said like.” She's so close, my heart is thumping as if it's stuck. She's so close. “I'm painting a metaphor here, Katniss. I can't dance, but I can talk. Let me do that.”

Her breath hitches. “I'm not stopping you.”

I wait. I can feel the crush building around, behind and around and above. The music swells to a peak, laughter cascades. There are no ears on us. We might be victors but everyone is so caught up in themselves here. I could stop moving and shout the rest of my little story. I could quit talking altogether and do something else, something quiet and sudden and involving this Katniss beside me that makes my body twitch and the world go very hot very suddenly. I shake it off, make myself look at her. Casual charm. Reassurance. I'm good at that. “Anyway,” I say, “it all came to an end when someone knocked that shelf down and the bottle broke and spilled into the scraps bin. So that was the end of that. The pig enjoyed a couple of fragrant meals, though. Seemed to appreciate it.”

She's quiet. I thought I might get a smile but instead she says softly, “Do you like it?”

“What?”

Her eyes dart away. I know what she's going to say. I don't want her to.

I'm selfish. I like to hear her voice. Selfish wins.

“The perfume. The dress. Do you like it, Peeta?”

She doesn't pose it as a question. Her voice dips flat and stays there. The shivers return, but now they're mine too, a shared reaction, swimming as I can't, as she can. “It's for you, I suppose,” she says. “They imagine that. What you think when you look at me...”

“Katniss--”

“I wish we were anywhere but here.”

I gulp at the 'we'. “Me too.”

This should be our cue to step apart. Look for Haymitch and make him growl at us so we laugh and this feeling of unease disappears and takes the hurt with it. But the music keeps going, louder even, and if anything we drift closer. I don't know who starts it, if it's the angle at which we're moving or the scent of her or the way her breath slows. I don't know where the boldness comes from. I wonder if it's been building and I hadn't noticed ( _wrong!_ my body screams, laughing), but then we're kissing, and it's more careful and slower than anything we've done in a long time. Not that I think too much on that. Our breaths mix, I press against her. I encourage as much as I can feel her give, and all the while the voice cries out wrong again, and I ignore it, calling out just as loudly like I'm back at the wall again ready to topple over, slamming one shot back after another. _I don't care. I'm the poor kid in love. I love her, I love this. I don't care._

There's a bang. We break apart. One of her hands has crept to clutch mine and my thumb is pressing against her breast and I can feel the skin warm and grow warmer, the soft rise of her body beneath feathery silk. She realises this and steps away, her legs unsteady and her eyes darting. She licks her lips and lifts her fingers to touch them. I know it's unconscious, reactionary. I make the most of what I can, and smile where I shouldn't. She returns it. Suddenly I hear laughter as pieces of something shredded and soft drift down to land on our heads. The moment releases us; Katniss come back to me, reaching out. I watch curiously beneath my eyelashes as she picks out a piece of balloon and presents it to me.

“Gee, thanks,” I murmur. 

Katniss tips her head, doing a good impression of our escort. “Why, darling. Everyone needs a party souvenir.”

Her eyes hide something. It's hard to read. A continuation, maybe. Of what I don't know. I wish I really could take her away, anywhere. Be selfish where it's understood because I'm that lovestruck kid I never grew away from. 

I take her hand. “Let's go.”

The rest of the night passes by. We talk, together, separately, dancing with people neither of us like. We hide behind masks and perfect fake as we should. 

I tuck the souvenir into my pocket and feel ridiculous. I know what it means.

We kiss only once more that evening. Like the dance, this time is also different. She's stronger here, bolder, shadowed in the dark of the elevator that spits out Haymitch and Effie and encloses us safely back inside before either of them can burst from their self-enclosed bubbles and notice we haven't followed. The look Haymitch bores our way as the doors slide closed is worth any lecture we're bound to get in the morning. We ascend fifteen floors as the building hums around us. I press her against a panel of silver where it's hard and cool, and her tongue darts out to taste mine, airy light, barely there. Maybe we can be selfish together. There's nobody but us here to see.


End file.
